Babb: Chiefs have new look, but blah-blah-blah.
 

Chiefs have a new look and a new attitude; but they've had that before
By KENT BABB
The Kansas City Star

They stepped off the bus unburdened by pessimism or time. This was something new. The Chiefs' young faces showed hope, and their words suggested that failure wouldn't be part of the agenda.

"The sky is the limit," then-rookie defensive lineman Glenn Dorsey said at last year's training camp, a few months after the Chiefs had finished a 4-12 season. "The only way is the way up. A lot of people are not really giving us a chance, but we're going to surprise a lot of people this year. You can see it in people's eyes: We're going to be a good football team."

Then they weren't. In fact, they finished 2-14 — the franchise's worst season ever. On the way there, a chain reaction of bad luck and worse decisions emerged, a digression that sent the Chiefs to their most disappointing, upsetting and explosive 12-month period in team history.

Quarterback Brodie Croyle suffered a severe injury in the regular-season opener, a loss within a loss. The team then traveled a path of chaos and change. This week, as the team reports to River Falls, Wis., for another training camp, the page will be turned. The Chiefs have made the changes, top to bottom, and adjusted their attitude. There's optimism at Arrowhead Stadium for the first time in months.

This time, the Chiefs hope it lasts more than a few weeks.

• • •

It didn't begin badly.

This time last year, the Chiefs were flying. Longtime team president Carl Peterson had relinquished some of his control, giving an inch of power to coach Herm Edwards, who decided the old way hadn't worked. So the Chiefs went young. Edwards packed the team with rookies and long shots, flushing the retreads that Peterson sometimes had turned to if it meant hope for an outside shot at the playoffs.

Edwards had a different plan. It seemed fresh. Players responded. Outsiders noticed.

"I was up at training camp, and I thought they looked pretty good," says Gil Brandt, the longtime NFL personnel man and analyst. "I thought they'd have more wins."

It's easy now to suggest Edwards' way was a mistake. Not even the most loyal Edwards partisans would suggest the Chiefs accomplished much in 2008, other than giving those youngsters some experience.

But when did the misery begin? When was the Chiefs' crossroads moment, when a break here or there might have sent the season on a different path?

"When your quarterback goes down the first game of the year, that sets the course," Brandt says.

Hall of Fame quarterback Len Dawson has another memory in mind.

"Oakland game," he says of the Chiefs' loss in week two. "That set the tone."

Then again …

"The Jets game," Dawson continues, referring to another loss. "They had that game. That was a big deal."

The point is that there were a lot of games that defied logic, reason and good sense. The Chiefs stretched the boundaries of probability, from a shutout in Carolina to more than a few unimaginable collapses in front of their home fans.

But the thing is: That's all over. The Chiefs started trying to forget 2008 as soon as the clock struck '09, and they've made the necessary changes to flush the bad memories for good. A new general manager, Scott Pioli. A new coach, Todd Haley. A new quarterback, Matt Cassel. A new defense, the 3-4. A new this and a new that, all those moves made with this in mind: However 2009 plays out, at least it won't look much like 2008.

Seven months after the team's regular-season finale, the Chiefs have renewed confidence. Things look different around team headquarters, from philosophy to personnel and just about everything in between.

But that was the case this time last year, too. The Chiefs have to somehow find a way to not lose their grip on that optimism, to avoid doing what they did last year: watch as all that hope bubbled, circled and drifted away.

"They had their opportunities," Dawson says. "But you've got to put people away."

• • •

It was real. That was the part that was so tough to digest last fall. Arrange a team of writers — motivated and caffeinated daytime-drama types — and there couldn't be much more ugliness, deception and intrigue in their script than what played out at Arrowhead over the past year.

Croyle got hurt. Damon Huard did, too. The curtain went up on the Tyler Thigpen era. The defense couldn't keep a three-toed sloth from running for 150 yards. Tony Gonzalez got mad at Carl Peterson. Croyle got hurt again. Huard did, too. Larry Johnson was benched and then suspended. Thigpen looked … OK. Peterson stepped down.

How could it have been crazier?

Well, the season ended. Pioli was hired, Edwards fired, Haley hired, Gonzalez traded, Matt Cassel acquired and on and on the drama went — one cliffhanger after another — each storyline harder to swallow than a porcupine sandwich.

"A lot of things piled up into one," Chiefs hall of famer Deron Cherry says.

And Cherry knows a few things about playing for a team that can't laugh for crying. He played for those depressing 1980s teams. Those teams lacked leadership and vision and old-fashioned luck, and those are things last year's Chiefs team couldn't muster in 12 long months of trying.

Pioli and Haley have made it clear that this team shouldn't hurt for leadership. The Chiefs acquired a slew of veterans, hoping a handful would yield a loud voice or two in the locker room. Where Gonzalez and guard Brian Waters had trouble commanding the attention of their teammates in 2008, linebacker Zach Thomas and guard Mike Goff spent the spring months shrugging off the compliments of their teammates.

"You've got to have that strong leadership," Cherry said. "They're not going to let the team fall apart."

The other thing that Haley made clear was that this year's Chiefs won't slug into the second half of games with heavy legs and aching lungs. The coach's offseason practices had a clear focus, conditioning, something that hadn't been much more than a footnote in Edwards' drills. The Chiefs' former coach didn't return calls seeking comment for this story, and he hasn't responded to numerous inquiries by The Star this offseason, many of them to ask simply what went wrong in 2008 and what might have salvaged the season.

Some outsiders now say that Edwards could have adjusted his approach to help prepare the young Chiefs. Instead, he took the power that Peterson ceded to him, an unprecedented level of input to assemble the team, and couldn't do much more than the man he had wrestled it from.

"Maybe the ex-coach was a good football coach," Brandt says, "but I don't know if he was the toughest guy in the world. Maybe he wasn't the kind of guy who would get on your ass."

That's part of the reason, Dawson figures, that the team had to be blown up. Again. And why Pioli and Haley had to, in effect, start from scratch. In the time since they both arrived in Kansas City, they haven't left many fragments to remind fans of the team's unfortunate past 12 months.

"You get beat up on and beat up on week after week after week," Dawson says. "You have to make those changes. They had no choice."

• • •

In four days, the Chiefs will step off the buses at training camp with optimism in their minds and hope in their words. It won't look much different than it did last year. Many of the faces are different, sure, but the expectation will be almost identical: progress. Something a little better than the past 12 months.

The Chiefs haven't made much progress the past two seasons. Success and luck eluded them, too. Then again …

"In this league," Cherry says, "you have to make your own luck."

The old defensive back says the Chiefs seem to have the ingredients it takes to win more games and, if nothing else, avoid all that happened last year. They'll still need to hope for health and lean on veterans, two things that last year just didn't go according to plan. But with conditioning a priority and the promising and eager Cassel signed to a long-term contract, two variables have been taken out of play. Ask some of last year's optimists, and they'd say that any upgrade is welcome.

Now, the Chiefs will wait and see. That's what they did last year. They'll hope now that some good things are waiting. And nothing that looks a thing like 2008.

"The attitude has to change," Dawson says. "They have to believe in themselves, but in order to believe, they have to enjoy a little success once in a while. It would be nice to enjoy a little success."

It'll take the Nu Chiefs to win a lot of games in order for Herm to make any comments to the Star. And then he'll be saying "I put that team together."

It doesn't really matter what happens. If the Chiefs win, Herm and Carl will say "look what we did, you just didn't give us enough time". If the Chiefs lose, Herm and Carl will just look smug and give everyone that 'we are just as good as these young prodigies, they can't win either' look.

by the time haley and pioli are finished there won't be but a handful of herm's players left....it is obvious they took one look at herm's players and threw up in their mouths...

I'm still offended by the fact that Herm wasn't fired on the first day of the new regime.

I really don't hope so. Just because I think losing has gotten old. I'm tired of my emotions being played with!!!!!!

:cuss::cuss::cuss::cuss::cuss:

Why does anyone care what Gil Brandt thinks these days?

And as much as I love Len Dawson (who doesn't?), why can't these reporters get any former Chiefs players to comment other than him (and yes, I read that Cherry responded)?

I believe the word you're looking for is "lazy".

I don't know if my boner is from the fact that Herm is gone or that a new regime is here to make it better.

Could be the girly thread too...)

Eh, I'm excited. I want to see the new D-line. I want to see Cassel running Haley's offense. I want to see someone step up at right tackle.

I'm still a Chiefs fan and love football. I'm excited as hell, but I also understand that we're likely not "there" yet. At least the growth should be a bit more fun this year.

Yep. And the Moron said that the Chiefs were 80% there after the season ended. Man that fool really set the franchise back. The ONLY good thing he did was indirectly get rid of Carl.

I have developed the opinion that He Who Can't Chew Gum must be one of the most compelling salesmen in the world, Mr. TEX. It's the only possible explanation as to how he was able to get a head coaching position in the first place. Everybody who knows him attests to what a "nice guy" he is. He Who Walks Into Walls is probably very personable and likable one-on-one.

But, I guarantee you that Carl Peterson rues the day he bought whatever it was that He Who Can't Tie His Shoes was selling in that meeting. The day Carl hired him was the beginning of the end for the King. We can thank He Who Can't Internet for that, anyhow.

FAX

Yep. It was a terrible hire from the get go and most could easily see that. I'm just glad the whole thing finally ended.